As to Maneki Neko, some of the earlier ones were hollowed out to provide a place to hide those nasty phallic statues which were no longer allowed to be shown publicly. Also, to Maneki Neko's credit, she provided the basic design for the Pokemon critters, especially Meowth. And, one more for the road: There are a number of Maneki Neko clubs, including the English-language, email-based one on Yahoo, called "manekinekocollectors"... --donaldmoon